LA JOLLA, Calif. — It doesn't take much to get William Lan and Phillip Lan laughing, especially when they're together. They have more inside jokes than they can count, and they make Timmer Willing, their head coach on the UC San Diego men's tennis team, crack up more often than he'd like to admit. And the twin brothers, both juniors, do nearly everything together. They have for basically their entire lives.
 
From sharing classes in elementary school and playing ping pong together in Taiwan to sharing a dorm room and biking to team workouts together at UC San Diego, the two biggest constants in Will and Phil's lives have always been tennis and each other.
 
The brothers were born in Taipei, Taiwan, which is where their tennis journey started, albeit on a smaller scale. Before they picked up tennis rackets, Will and Phil played ping pong. For much of their childhood, they split time between Taiwan and the United States, alternating one year here and one year there. In that time, Will says the pair were more connected to Taiwanese culture than American culture, which pushed them to try ping pong.
 
Will recalls facing his brother in the finals of a national tournament in Taiwan, qualifying the fact that Phil won by saying, "Taiwan's smaller than like, half of California, so it wasn't that big of a deal," which only makes Phil chuckle and comment that Will is, "still salty" about the now nearly 15-year-old loss.
 
But as good as they were, the brothers did not play ping pong for long. Will explains that a trip to the U.S., where ping pong is more of a game than a sport, made him and his brother reconsider their commitment to it. It was their parents who suggested they try tennis.
 
"Our parents always wanted us to have a hobby or sport and take it very seriously," Will explains. "It was our parents who were like, 'okay, you guys don't like ping pong anymore, why don't you try tennis? It's like ping pong,' and we picked it up pretty quickly."
 
Their parents, especially their mother, have remained driving forces in Will and Phil's tennis careers. By the time the brothers settled in the U.S., they weren't just taking the sport seriously, they were seriously good.
 
"We were doing well in Taiwan, and when we moved to the U.S., there was one point we realized we were good," Will says. "We were winning a couple tournaments, and our mom sat us down one day and said, 'look, you guys are good, I can see a future for you guys, I just need you to commit to taking it seriously and I'll do everything in my power to support you and improve you guys.'"
 
The brothers made the commitment, and with their family as a driving force behind them, they embarked on a junior career that saw them bouncing between coaches and even spending time abroad in Argentina and Spain, all in the name of becoming better tennis players. Looking back on those years, Will and Phil both express how important it was to be going on the journey together.
 
"Tennis is kind of a lonely sport," Will says. "You're on the court six hours a day — four to five hours of tennis, an hour or two of fitness and stretching, your whole day you're just with a coach." Or, in the Lans' case, a coach and your brother.
 
"We would have the same coaches, we would go to practice together, we would go to dinner together after practice, and then we would do activities before practice, after practice," Phil says. "Every time we moved, we knew we had a constant in each other and tennis."
 
And all the traveling and training did pay off. In hindsight, Will says it was thanks to his mom pushing him and Phil, constantly looking for opportunities for them to improve that he made the team at UC San Diego along with his brother. They say they were never planning to go to the same college, but in nearly the same breath, Will admits that ending up together felt inevitable.
 
"I've always just thought that a lot of things in both our lives just conveniently happen to put us together, so UC San Diego was like that."
 
Despite looking at various schools on the East Coast, the brothers, who attended high school in La Cañada, California, both decided to stay closer to home and play their collegiate tennis in La Jolla, a move which made their parents happy for more than just the proximity to home. Their mom has never enjoyed watching the two play against each other.
 
"Sometimes, if we met each other in the semis or the finals of a tournament, our mom would say, 'okay, rock-paper-scissors and just act like you're trying, but rock-paper-scissors and whoever wins, wins,'" Phil explains. "She doesn't like us fighting."
 
"She's really against family conflict," Will adds. "She thinks Phil and I fight but we never do."
 
And while they are as competitive as you would expect brothers to be, whether they are playing a practice set or just playing video games, Will and Phil are happy to be on the same team.
 
"During (our junior careers) we played each other a lot of times," Phil says. "Too many times."
 

When they decided on UC San Diego, at least according to Phil, they made it clear to Head Coach Timmer Willing that either both of them would be on the team, or neither of them would.
 
"I didn't get recruited," Phil says. "I emailed Timmer (Willing), and then I told him that we're a package deal. He was like, yeah, okay."
 
Willing says there is a grain of truth to that story, but also suggests that Phil might not be giving himself enough credit for his skills.
 
"I had seen Phillip play, I saw a video of him, and he didn't even know how I got the video," Willing explains, laughing a little. "I didn't really see Will enough, but I knew Phillip was pretty good and I was like, well, if Will's coming on, he's going to have to earn his spot like everybody else."
 
While Will was earning his spot on the team, Phil launched right into action for the Tritons in 2020, starting with an early season trip to Hawaii, which he says is one of his favorite tennis memories. Phil picked up wins in singles, at No. 4 against Hawaii Hilo and No. 3 against Hawaii Pacific the next day, which earned him a promotion to the No. 2 singles spot and then, still just a freshman, Phil earned the top spot in the Tritons' singles rotation.
 
While their first season on the court was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, off the court both young men were adjusting to college life. It was not their first time away from home, but it was their first taste of independence together.
 
"Our parents are crazy strict, so whenever we're home we have curfews and we have things we're not allowed and allowed to do, so when we came here together, it was perfect," Will says. "We could do whatever we wanted, and it made things a lot less anxious because I knew, in this new, foreign place, someone will for sure have my back, and it's this guy."
 
They tell stories about wandering around campus together, having their "minds blown" by the bigness of it and the strangeness of some of the architecture, especially the house perched precariously on the edge of the Jacobs School of Engineering. And they laugh about how nice it was (and still is) to have each other as roommates, joking about "horror stories" of roommates with stinky feet and loud, late-night video game habits.
 
"I feel like most people would agree it's better having a friend there (with you), but since I've known Phil for my whole life, when we're together, just fooling around, we can stare at that umbrella right there and probably start laughing our butts off for some reason," Will says, gesturing toward a striped umbrella at a nearby table. "Phil and I, we know each other so well, we have a crazy amount of inside jokes, so it's never boring."
 
"Honestly, we can be our true selves with each other," Phil adds.
 

Now in their third year at UC San Diego, the brothers have grown on and off the court. Will, who Willing says has always been one of the team's best "practice players," has earned a consistent spot in the lineup of late as Daniel Traxler's doubles partner. The pair are 4-4 since joining up in late March. Phil has likewise established himself in the Tritons' doubles rotation, forming a formidable pairing with freshman Pelayo Rodriguez. The two are 9-4 on the season, and earned Triton Athlete of the Week honors as a pair after a run of four straight wins in March. Phil has also been the Tritons' regular starter at No. 2 singles, and clinched the team's first Big West Conference victory over UC Riverside. Willing has seen the brothers grow into their role as teammates off the court as well.
 
"They were a little bit self-centered in the beginning, when they were freshmen, but that's normal," Willing says. "Everybody's worried about themselves when they get in here and then they start understanding the team aspect. You're going to play these matches and in four years you're done with that and then there's the rest of your life that you're going to be a Triton. You spent four years with these guys that you're going to have a connection to and be able to laugh at things that you did when you were a young kid. I think they're on that track now, and I see good things coming."
 
Next season will be Will and Phil's last at UC San Diego, after which they will embark on their next adventure, likely in the healthcare field; both brothers are eyeing jobs as physicians' assistants after graduation. Whatever post-grad life holds in store for them, whether they end up together or not, Will and Phil Lan can be sure of one thing: their brother will always have their back. 

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.